[Single Card Discussion: TimeTwister]

[Guli]

"Timetwister"
Info:  Color = Blue      Type = Sorcery               Cost = 2U       Edition =  Beta (B)

Errata:  Each player shuffles his or her hand and graveyard into his or her library and then draws seven cards.  (Then put Timetwister into its owner's graveyard.) [Oracle 2001/08/24]

Vintage tournaments (see Rule 801) have restricted this card since 1994/01/25.

In the old days i always ran a copy of Timetwister in every blue deck. It hardly sees play anymore. But the effects of this card can be pretty game winning if played correctly. Discuss it if it would be used in the current meta. I want to point out it is graveyard hate aswell. The big disadvantage is that you give your opponent 7 cards, wich can be a direct loss next turn, unless you finish him of already.

[Harlequin]

The constraints on a deck to successfully run Timetwister are rather restrictive in my book:

#1) It needs to have full power (takeing fish and Mono-U outa the running)

#2) It needs to be able to win without its graveyard (this makes it sub-otimal for gifts based decks and Slaver)

#3) It needs to beable to hold board advantage and NOT focus on hand size advantage. (takes heavy control decks outa the running).

Now I'll explane Why:

#1 comes down to the BEST use of Timetwister.  The best way you can use timetwister is On the play, Turn 1, knowing that your opponent did not mulligan.  Probably the best hand to see twister in is Land, Artifact mana x3, Force, Blue, Twister.  the reason is you drop your land and manas then twist.  This gives you a dirrect statsical advantage.  You want to draw 7 business cards and few mana sourses because, well you already have some in play (also this is statistically great for you because your only drawing from a smaller deck that is more dence with threats - because some mana is in play).  On the other side of the table, Its like starting the game saying "you cannot mulligan."  Considering a competative T1 deck should mulligan 1 in 4 to 1 in 6 seven card hands this gives you a possiblity of putting them at a MAJOR disadvantage... and basically ending the game before it even starts.

#2 is obvious and is actually a reason you listed as to why you should run it.

#3 is similar to #1, remember when you cast it, the 7 cards your drawing is from your remaining deck minus what is in play.  So If you have a dominate board possision then you are MUCH better off than your opponent who will be forced to play catch-up.  If your oppoenent has snuck some stuff onto the board, and your sitting on a few lands and a 6 card hand full of counterspells and draw spells... twister is not good for you.



The problem is finding a deck that can really fit into these restraints.  It seems like Combo such as old school TPS and 2-Land Belcher are the only decks that could consider running this card in my oppinion.

[The Atog Lord]

Time Twister is the fixed Yawgmoth's Will.

[warble]

Time Twister is what you get if you spend all the mana for a game-winning tinker and then instead give your opponent and you a new 7 card hand and tap all of your mana.  Sadness.

It's a great draw 7 but we don't really need draw 7's in this vintage world of infinite tutor-ness.  It's inappropriate for a meta with Fish, Oath, Workshop and Control Decks.  But it's totally appropriate for Type 2.  Maybe we can get it reprinted.

[chrissss]

I have won a lot of games because of the timetwister.

even with just a ; mana crypt, mox diamond, sea, island, timetwister, brainstorm , fow.

you play the cards, and bam, 7 new ones. my opponent sometimes doesnt have any land, and this is card advantage.
I have always used it in my decks, but thats maybe because its my only p9 card
I have had it against me, when he time walked, twistered, and time walked again the next turn because of the twister.
using after tormods crypting your opponent.

when my memory jar deck was stil legal, it was in there for underworld dreads damage, and fast 7 card drawing.

nowadays I am sure its not so good anymore, and its true that you hardly see it in decks.
I even had it in my red sligh deck with blue splash for the 3 blue power 9 cards.

[zeus-online]

I've slowly begun to re-consider old school cards (mind twist, timetwister etc.)

And while i'd definetly agree that twister hardly qualifies as a "power 9 card" or that its a must-add...i've come to think of it the same way as i think of *balance: A way to reset a game gone bad.
If i'm behind in CA, twister could, theoretically put me back in business.....I'm still not sure if its good enough to get played in any current deck, but i really dont think its as bad as people tend to say it is.


/Zeus

*Balance is obviously alot better then timetwister...!

[chrissss]

[off topic]I am sure of Sol Ring was printed as a rare, it would have been power 10. [/off topic]

had to say that.

the card was great in the old school control decks; counter everything, swords his creatures, remove his graveyard, and twister + regrowth.

mind twist is a great card imo, but the danger of it being misdirected at you....
I had it once, and I misdirected a few, and its no fun.

its still in most of my mono black decks though.

[BreathWeapon]

Time Twister is what you get if you spend all the mana for a game-winning tinker and then instead give your opponent and you a new 7 card hand and tap all of your mana.  Sadness.

It's a great draw 7 but we don't really need draw 7's in this vintage world of infinite tutor-ness.  It's inappropriate for a meta with Fish, Oath, Workshop and Control Decks.  But it's totally appropriate for Type 2.  Maybe we can get it reprinted.

Are you saying that TimeTwister doesn't have a place in Combo now that we have combo decks like IT that rely on Grim Tutor and Intution?

And if so, does any one else think that Combo is becoming dangerously over reliant on Yawgmoth's Will?

[Implacable]

Time Twister is what you get if you spend all the mana for a game-winning tinker and then instead give your opponent and you a new 7 card hand and tap all of your mana.  Sadness.

It's a great draw 7 but we don't really need draw 7's in this vintage world of infinite tutor-ness.  It's inappropriate for a meta with Fish, Oath, Workshop and Control Decks.  But it's totally appropriate for Type 2.  Maybe we can get it reprinted.

Are you saying that TimeTwister doesn't have a place in Combo now that we have combo decks like IT that rely on Grim Tutor and Intution?

And if so, does any one else think that Combo is becoming dangerously over reliant on Yawgmoth's Will?

Saying that combo is overreliant on YawgWill is misleading.  Yes, combo relies on it, but only because it's that good.

[warble]

Are you saying that TimeTwister doesn't have a place in Combo now that we have combo decks like IT that rely on Grim Tutor and Intution?

That is EXACTLY what I am saying.  Why would I want to restock your hand to 7 if you have mana open, instead of setting myself up at instant speed or, alternatively, fetching either black lotus/yawgmoth's will or some other lethal stack?  Risk versus benefit, when it comes to playing combo you want to know you win on turn 1.  Saying combo is over-reliant on yawgmoth's will is not true, but saying combo wins on turns 1 and 2 are over-reliant on yawgmoth's will IS true.  The easiest way to win on turn 1 is using yawgmoth's will.  Therefore, if you're going to have to play past then grim tutor and intuition are better than twister because you implicitly assume your opponent has mana to utilize the 7 drawn cards.  I guess the fastest deck is an exception, but I think I'd prefer to draw 2 cards myself for 1 black 1 colorless than somehow find a f'ing blue mana...

[Moxlotus]

Twist is only worth including in a deck with Xantids.  The two go together like Tinker/Big Artifact.  I wouldn't play one without the other, except in Belcher.

[netherspirit]

The first Vintage deck I built used Twister with Wheel of Fortune, Tormod's Crypt and Regrowth to deck your opponent out. It wasn't exactly hugely powerful, but Twister definitely can be an effective card.
I've always found it to be effective if the deck is designed to use it, but it's not something I'd always consider putting in.

[ELD]

I've held this viewpoint since I first saw time twister.  I think Twister is only really good when your deck is just straight up better than your opponents deck.  If you're playing vs Sui or the other random crap that used to be a part of the metagame, your new 7 was going to be much more powerful then their new 7.  Decks that were simple in their game plan and auto lose to cards like the abyss or some sideboard bomb (like Dragon vs aura fracture) were just not in a fair fight.  The redundancy of an these decks meant that multiple threats in hand really weren't that good.  3x Nantuko Shade isn't exactly optimal.  Now many aggro decks have the ability to combo off when given enough resources.  FCG, Affinity, even fish can play out multiple threats in the same turn and drop standstill.  I think twister was really dead when GAT showed up.  If you played twister and passed to a GAT player, you were almost certainly dead.  At that point, twister was no longer in the better deck, so it was a liability instead of a game winner. 

In the format we play today, I feel twister is a very powerful card in Grim Long, because it's actually straight up better than pretty much anything it is matched up against.  I can't really see it being that good in any other deck right now.  Just my opinion though.

[Guli]

That is exactly the reason why i opened this THREAD*. I can't think of any deck it would be powerfull enough. But i am sure it is not the card but us. There must be card combinations out there to make a Twister based deck and to fairly nulify the advantages given away to opponent while you are at it.

*edit

[netherspirit]

I'm working on something with Twister at the moment, the idea in it is to drop Arcane Laboratory to stop your opponent going nuts, and then use Timetwister to keep replenishing, Dream Halls is also in there. Great fun with graveyard removal.
I think it could be quite effective with Requisition when that's released as well.

[Tin_Mox5831]

I agree whole-heartedly with ELD here. When I'm playing Grim Long and I resolve Timetwister, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, unless I'm playing a mirror, I'll have an almost insurmountable advantage 90% of the time. My cards are just so much more broken than the new 7 that Stax, Slaver, Ichorid, etc just saw.

[dskippy0]

[off topic]I am sure of Sol Ring was printed as a rare, it would have been power 10. [/off topic]

No way, man. It was printed in Revised.

#1) It needs to have full power (takeing fish and Mono-U outa the running),

Since when does Mono-U control not run a full set of power (Twister withstanding)? Last I checked the Mono-U control decks, back when it was winning games, were running all five moxen for spells like Ophidian, Mana Leak, and Energy Flux.

I think the decks that use Timetwister the best are aggro decks. It works fairly horribly in control decks simply because the goal of a control is to essentially destroy the resource that is your opponents opening hand. After counter wars are over and there are no cards of value on the board and your opponents hand is gone, you've won and then you search for Tinker. Starting over with a new hand is undoing all of the work.

In an aggro deck, it's a bit of a different story. If you're able to dump your hand onto the board very quickly I can think of nothing better than renewing that hand to start over. Against control it's at least a must counter. A deck that can run Timetwister effectively is Ravager/Affinity which dumps its hand very quickly. This deck is not tier 1, however, it's not because of it's use of Twister, it's just to easily hatable.